


After That Thing With Nadia

by Spina_Runner_51



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: 5am, F/M, Gen, Pillow & Blanket Forts, Sam Yao is the king of unintentional sexual innuendo, Season/Series 02 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:42:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27745414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spina_Runner_51/pseuds/Spina_Runner_51
Summary: Takes place at the end of Season 2, episode 4:After a bad experience with the New Canton radio operator, Sam comes to Five's rescue and offers her a place in the comms shack.  But first he had to do something about the mess.  And the awkward things he just said over the radio.(A rewrite of my original submission for the "Blanket Fort" prompt, for the Discord server's monthiversary celebration.)-G rated, though suggestive-Spoilers through Season 2 M4
Relationships: Janine De Luca/Sam Yao, Runner Five/Sam Yao
Comments: 1
Kudos: 22





	After That Thing With Nadia

Sam switched his microphone off long enough to take a breath. He was furious. He could feel the adrenaline still coursing through him. Nadia had tried to get Five killed. And if he hadn't happened to have gotten on the radio when he did...

He looked over at Janine. She had come into the shack while he was mid-argument with Nadia, sat down beside him at the desk—and done very little since then but listen. Now she was balanced on a stool on his right, leaning intently over one of the scanners. Her expression was carefully blank, but he saw the telltale red splotches on her cheeks, a giveaway of her actual emotional state that Sam had come to recognize over time. Janine had remained unusually silent throughout. It had surprised him. She hadn’t taken over, or even intervened. Not even when things had gone really, horribly wrong.

He supposed on reflection that, for once, he had been angry enough for the both of them.

Sam clicked his mic back on.

"That's it, Five," he said, "I’m not leaving you in New Canton after that. You're coming back here and you're staying at Abel. We'll just… we'll find room. Even if you have to sleep with Janine."

Sam felt movement beside him. He turned, surprised, and looked straight up into Janine's shocked eyes. In his mind he replayed what he'd just said.

"I mean—not “sleep” sleep with Janine,” he said, very quickly. “God, no."

This didn’t seem to help. Janine was still staring at him in that way she had when he had done something so wrong that she couldn’t cope.

"Not that there's anything wrong with sleeping with Janine, I mean, she's lovely... Lot’s of people would be happy…to sleep with Janine…” Sam felt himself spiraling down into an ever smaller, ever worsening path, while he watched himself continue to talk, unable to stop the momentum.

"That's enough, Mr. Yao," said Janine, in a tone of barely suppressed horror.

 _Oh, thank god she stopped me_ , thought Sam. He leaned over and put his forehead in one hand, in relief.

There was a quiet noise from Five's headset. Sam wasn't absolutely sure what it was... and then he knew. He sat back up, reached over to the comms box and keyed into Five’s channel only.

"Five," he asked incredulously, "Are you giggling? You literally only just escaped from being shot a few minutes ago. And you’re giggling right now? You’re giggling?"

The noises of stifled breathing increased in intensity. "I know," she choked out, in a strained voice. "But you said—" And then she was lost. “Lots of people would be happy—" she said, in a weak, desperate gasp, and then she couldn’t form proper words any longer. She almost sounded as if she was in pain. 

"This is really unprofessional, you know, Five," he said, trying to keep his voice stern.

He was rewarded by more irregular choking noises from her headset. He spun his chair to the right, smiling, and looked once again up directly into Janine’s expression of disapproval. Had she just… been there, the whole time? His face fell. He thumbed the mic off.

“Just putting my runner in good spirits after a traumatic event, Janine, no need to look at me like that,” he said.

Her mouth tightened, but she nodded. “Carry on, Mr. Yao,” she said.

Over the next half an hour Sam guided Five back in the direction of Abel. Five ran into Archie going in the opposite direction—and Archie volunteered to accompany her part of the way back again, just in case. Sam wasn’t really sure what the ‘just in case’ meant, but he suspected it was more Archie’s desire to apologize for Nadia behavior than any practical consideration. Luckily, Archie provided her own continuous cheery commentary, so once they were back on a well-known track home, Sam thought he could take a moment to breathe again without worrying that Five would get bored.

He sighed and lifted his headphones off his head, stretching out his neck. No matter how much he wore them, the headphones always managed to give him a headache, eventually. He supposed someday he should try and get one of those really light, Bluetooth ones, something with sound dampening. Except he was sort of attached to this old, battered pair. They had seen him through so much. He sighed, putting them down on the desk in front of him, and spun his chair around in one loop.

Janine had moved away at some point. She was now perching precariously and stiffly on the arm of the couch, making every attempt to keep the greatest distance possible between herself and the messy pile of blankets that Sam had left on the seat, shoved to one side after he woke up that afternoon. Sam considered the blankets, and suddenly he knew solution to the problem of Five’s bunk.

He turned back to the microphone in joyous triumph, quickly putting the headphones back over his ears.

"Five!" he cried. "You can sleep with me!"

There was a deathly silence. Even the sound of Five's running footsteps grew faint. Behind him, he could feel Janine fail to breathe. Only then did Sam realize he had clicked into the open channel, broadcasting to everyone. Every Abel runner. Every New Canton runner. Everyone else who might happen to have a headset on at that moment. Which made the silence especially notable.

"I mean," he said frantically, "You can share the couch with me! In the comms shack." The silence wasn't particularly decreasing in intensity. "When I'm not in it," added Sam, weakly. "I've been working really weird hours, sharing missions with New Canton. I mean, even without Nadia they do have other operators... And anyway, if you don't mind me on radio while you sleep, we can share the space, trade off..."

There was more silence. Sam desperately wished that he had Five on a camera so he could see her face. Then he heard her take a breath.

"Okay, Sam. Thank you." Her voice was clipped and awkward, but Sam closed his eyes in relief and thumbed off the microphone. Five was coming back. That was all that mattered.

And maybe once she was back and in her bite check with Maxine and he was off comms, he could find a copy of a movie she liked and charge up one of the laptops when Janine wasn't looking, and he and Five could watch it together tonight. Then he might be able to convince her to forget how much of his own foot he had once again managed to jam into his mouth just now.

Okay, the odds of her or anyone else letting him live the last half an hour down were small, but he could still try.  
  


A little while later Five was back in Abel and the gates were closed. Sam thumbed off the mic one last time and slumped over the desk. Now she’d be going for her post mission bite check and her debrief. She was home. He opened his eyes again. Janine was still there, now standing near the door and eyeing the comms shack disapprovingly. She fixed Sam with a look.

"I think you might need a bit of extra time to... Prepare for Five's presence, Mr. Yao. Perhaps I can make sure that her post-run report to me is particularly... In-depth."

Sam was confused for a moment—then he looked around the room and saw it with fresh eyes. The pile of blankets on the couch. The papers everywhere. The food containers abandoned in improbable locations. He stared at Janine in shock and sudden comprehension. "I— thank you, Janine. I would— I think she would really appreciate that."

Janine cast one more critical look around the shack. "I believe she would," she said, dryly.

The moment Janine went out, Sam tore through the small space, furiously straightening. Then he had a brilliant idea. He flung the door open and ran in the direction of the farmhouse.

* * *

Five realized that she’d been drifting off again and fought to draw her mind back to the present moment. She rubbed her face with one hand. Her eyes were hot and very dry, and the world seemed to be placed at a remove about one foot farther than it really was. She looked back up at Janine, trying to focus.

The briefing was finally winding down, having taken far more time than usual— a fact that Five was definitely not enjoying. She was especially exhausted after the mission today, not only physically but mentally, and all she wanted was to lie face down in the nearest available corner and fall dead asleep.

She’d worked so hard to try and keep her identity a secret as the wearer of Lem’s old headset. She’d sat in a tree outside of New Canton for hours on that horrible day, waiting for other Abel runners to straggle in so she could go through their gates as part of a group, so New Canton couldn’t identify her from the tracker. And then, after all that, Sam had blurted out everything to Nadia. He hadn’t meant to, obviously, but the damage was done all the same. Nadia had clearly been angry when she figured it out—but nothing had happened. It all seemed quiet. Five had been nervous that Nadia would find a way to take it out on her, but it seemed as if she would be satisfied only with snarky, angry remarks. Five had still been waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the moment of revenge… but she’d never expected it to go as far as it had that day. Nadia had tried to get her killed. And if it hadn’t been for Sam, it might have worked. 

Now the emotional toil of that surprise and betrayal weighed on her more heavily than even the run had. And the adrenaline was wearing off. As the meeting went on she found herself struggling to remain awake and focused. Even sitting on the unforgivingly straight-backed chair opposite Janine’s desk didn’t seem to be helping—she’d never found the chair so comfortable before. But she had more to do before she could sleep— when she could finally try and forget that day, at least for a while. First a shower, then food, then the walk to her bunk, which seemed a preposterously long prospect, considering in reality the distance was only a hundred meters or so.

She started, realizing she had begun to doze with her eyes open. She didn’t have a bunk at Abel any longer, did she? It had been destroyed in the bombing. She then came fully awake as she remembered that, for the near future at least, her bunk meant the couch in the comms shack. With Sam.

She was lost in that thought and it took her a moment to discover that Janine had fallen silent and was now staring down at her desk with an odd expression. Janine was clearly struggling with something. Five realized this meant she should be paying attention. She tried to sit up straighter in her chair and make the world come back into focus. It was very difficult, as everything felt wrapped in cotton batting, but she tried.

Finally, Janine took a long breath and met Five’s eyes. "Five, are you sure you're comfortable sharing a room with Mr. Yao like this?" she asked, slowly.

Five squinted at her, not quite sure what she was getting at. "Of course I'm comfortable with Sam," she said.

Janine’s mouth tightened. "That's not what I—" She paused and stared up at the ceiling. "I mean after what happened two months ago," she said.

Understanding filtered through Five's brain, and she found the fogginess very quickly burning away.

"You know that Simon told me... what happened," continued Janine, still looking steadfastly upward. "And I don't mean to embarrass you. But if you still have... feelings for Mr. Yao, and you think the situation might be... uncomfortable, despite our lack of space, I'm sure we can find alternate accommodations..."

"I'm fine," said Five. "I don't… We're just friends," she said, wishing briefly that she was back out with Nadia and the Deadlocks again.

"Right," said Janine, still not meeting her eyes. "I just want you to know that you have other choices. Should things prove awkward."

"Thank you," said Five, as evenly as she could.

“In that case,” said Janine reluctantly, “you are dismissed, Runner Five.”

Five rose stiffly, gave one last nod to Janine—a nod which was returned so slightly as to be almost subliminal—and fled.

* * *

Sam had just finished getting ready when there was a soft knock from outside. He flung himself into the chair, nearly overbalanced, righted himself, then tried to arrange his arms and legs to look nonchalant. Yeah, that looked… somewhat convincing. Sort of. There was another knock.

"Come in!" he called.

The door opened and Five took a few steps inside. She looked exhausted. She closed the door behind her with some effort and stood against it, looking far more hesitant than usual. "Hi, Sam," she said.

As soon as he saw Five, Sam forgot all about trying to look cool. All he wanted to do was to leap up and hug her. The thing with Nadia had really given him a scare. Now that his fury had worn off he was almost weak with relief at seeing her again and knowing that she would be staying in Abel, permanently. She wouldn't be going back to New Canton. Which meant having Five there for dinners and movie nights and someone to talk to without annoying Janine or distracting Maxine. He felt a swell of optimism, thinking about that. Still, something about Five's manner was holding him back, and he didn’t know what it was, or what he should do to dispel it. He decided to cope by going back to his earlier strategy of projecting casualness. "Oh, hey," he said.

Five’s mouth twitched. She gave him a slightly harder look, as if she was about to say something sarcastic. Then she glanced upward. Her eyes widened as she took in the room in general. "Oh," she said quietly. Everything reserved and distant dropped from her expression. She turned a pale face to Sam. "Did you do this for me?" She looked around with wonder.

In a short time the shack had been transformed. Sam had managed to shove most of the paperwork that usually cluttered his desk into the file cabinet. Janine had provided the giant hulking thing months ago, but he’d almost never bothered with it, except to store clothing in. It had never been much use, though recently he was very grateful to it, since it had saved him by being hurt when the bombing happened, by holding up the roof all by itself. It was _very_ large and _very_ sturdy.

So when they’d rebuilt the shack, he’d kept the file cabinet in its usual place for sentimental and somewhat practical reasons. But now he realized—it was somewhere to hide all that paper! It was now stuffed to the brim with unread dispatches from Janine, notes to himself, and all of his Demons and Darkness Binders that he’d had propped on top of wherever they could fit.

He’d picked up all the garbage too, swept, draped the couch with the nicest blanket he’d managed to procure, pinned more blankets to the ceiling, and ringed the room with hanging fairy lights, giving the shack a carnival-tent-like atmosphere that was surprisingly cozy. After some wrangling for first choice of biscuit rights with a couple of ladies from the Craft Guild, he’d even managed to appropriate a small dresser for Five. He’d squeezed it in next to the couch and filled it with some spare clothes he found for her in the general supply. Since she’d had to leave nearly everything she owned behind yet again, this time in New Canton, he thought she would need them. He wasn’t exactly sure of her size, but he thought… small? He’d even put vases (well, empty tin cans) of flowers he’d picked from the field next to the shack, on the desk and side table. He was a bit tired after all that running around, but he thought the place had never looked so good. Actually, it had never looked good before, period, so—definitely a massive improvement. And the work was more than worth it for the look on Five’s face at that moment.

"Well..." he said, shrugging, "I thought it might be nice..."

She gave him a shy, amazed half smile, and he couldn't hold back his enthusiasm any longer. He jumped to his feet. "It's just— I know sharing a cold little tin shack with me probably isn't exactly your dream, and... I know that most of your things got destroyed when your bunk was hit... and whatever else you managed to put together since then is still at New Canton… But I thought if I could try and make it pretty, all of that might not feel so bad!"

Five put a hand over her mouth. "I wondered why Janine was taking such a long time with my debrief. Did you two form a conspiracy?"  
He lowered his head, embarrassed.

"Well, not exactly a conspiracy..." He looked up and met Five's eyes and trailed off. She was smiling at him. Her eyes were bright. She had gone full dimple.

"Thank you, Sam," she said. "It's... it's really..." She held her hands out in front of her, palms up, as if trying to express something— then shrugged, giving up. "I'd rather be here with you than sleeping in a cot in a dorm in New Canton with a hundred other people. Times about a million. It's... sweet. You're sweet. Thank you." She tucked her hair behind her ears and sat on the couch. Sam reeled for a moment, feeling warm. _You’re sweet,_ she’d said.

Then Five stood up again, looking unsure. She gestured at the couch. "Sam, are you— do you need to sleep first?"

He waved her back. "No, no, please—you look tired."

She made a face as if she wanted to make a retort to that, but then she merely nodded. She crossed her arms, still standing. There was a slight, uncomfortable pause, while Five very purposefully did not sit down again.

"All I mean is,” he said, feeling as if he’d said something wrong, “that you had a long run today. Longer than you should have. While I just sat in this chair."

Reminding her of the day seemed to hit Five hard, and she blinked. She actually swayed a bit on her feet. But she looked as if she wasn't quite yet ready to give up on the battle over who should rest first.

"While you sat in this chair and saved me from getting shot,” she said.

He didn’t want to think too much about that happening. He would only make himself upset and angry again, so he just nodded. They looked each other for a moment in silence, neither one of them wanting to discuss that day any further, both too tired and shaken to think of anything else to say.

Then she made a wry face, as if conceding the issue. “So… when's your next shift?" she asked at last, changing the subject.

"Oh, 8 hours or so..."

He tried smiling disarmingly at her, but she frowned. Apparently she hadn’t given up after all. "Then you should sleep, Sam. You need to be able to think. I might not even have a run tomorrow."

"You got shot at today. You sleep."

She gave him an exasperated look. "I can sleep on the floor," she said.

"No, Five, you're— you're my guest."

Her mouth tightened. He felt the potential for a real fight coming on. Then suddenly, her eyebrows went up in surprise and she relaxed. She smiled at him. "I have an idea," she said. She looked at the couch, then reached down and flipped aside the blanket. She tugged at the cushions underneath, and they came free. She looked up at him with apparent satisfaction, holding up two crushed cushions and raising one eyebrow mysteriously.

"After doing the ceiling,” she said, “how many blankets do you have left?"

That was the first time they made a blanket fort.

Well, honestly, with the few blankets Sam was still had left, it was really more of a blanket lean-to, that first night. He pinned one blanket to the wall and taped the other sides to the chair and the stool, making kind of a ceiling. But at least plundering the couch created a large enough layer of pillows for both of them to lie down on, and the room felt so much cozier after his redecorating, that it didn’t much matter. It was as if the whole shack was a blanket fort. 

He and Five climbed inside the fort and it was only then that Sam realized that, after everything, he had totally forgotten about finding a movie for them to watch. Which had been the whole plan in the first place.

Five was rummaging around in her pack, and she made a happy cry and revealed a Galaxy candy bar, only partially crushed. She smiled at him and gave him half. Sam took the chocolate, feeling even more disappointed in himself. At least he had managed to charge up the laptop, which was a start. He wondered if he should just suggest they watch _Labyrinth_ again. For the tenth time. But then Five surprised him. She held up a hand, looking as if she had just remembered something, and dug around in her pack again. She came up holding a flash drive. “I managed to trade for these in New Canton!” she said, looking excited. She bit her lip. “How familiar are you with the work of Hayao Miyazaki?”

Suddenly his heart was pounding. “Five,” he said, “have I told you recently how much I love you?”

“Um,” she said, turning pink. “I’ll just take that as a yes.”

In the end they only got about halfway through _Howl’s Moving Castle_ before they both fell asleep—but they fell asleep happy. At some point in the night, Sam turned over and put his head on Five’s shoulder. She didn’t wake up.

* * *

Some hours later, a little while before breakfast, Eugene quietly opened the shack door. He’d been hoping to sneak in and steal an xlr cable from Sam’s stash, preferably without waking him. It was the first day he’d been able to persuade himself to get out of bed and do something productive since Jack had disappeared, and he was compensating by forcing himself to do a number of projects he’d been keeping off for a long time. He opened the shack door with a sigh, noticing how tired he felt already, after only the short walk there. Then he looked up. And he felt his heart lift for the first time in over a week.

He was surprised and charmed to discover the new state of the comms shack, with its fairy lights and unusual cleanliness. But he was even more charmed by the sight of Five and Sam sleeping peacefully side-by-side under the sagging awning of blanket. Eugene smiled and the expression transformed his face. He decided he didn’t need the cable so urgently after all. He went out just as quietly as he had come in, closing the door behind him. After thinking for a moment, he took a notebook and pen out of his pocket, tore out a piece of paper, and scrawled on it— **Secret Mission, Come back later** , in large letters. He tucked the paper into the door of the shack, where anyone who came along would see. Then he clumped away, smiling to himself.

**Author's Note:**

> I've combined Sam's lines from two different episodes in Season 2, where he twice says something awkward about sleeping with Janine.  
> I also put Janine in the shack for this mission, even though she wasn't actually there.  
> Because it's so much more uncomfortable that way, and I thrive on that. Thrive.


End file.
